A Dropped Stitches Christmas (13 page)

“I don’t need a wig,” I say. “I’ve been meaning to go back to my natural color anyway. Brown.”

The costume woman leaves the stage to go back in her room to find out what she has for me to wear. The director is off talking to the saxophone player. The shepherds are taking a coffee break.

Lizabett has moved up onstage next to me and she looks at me. “Are you sure? Dying your hair? This isn’t just some spur-of-the-moment idea?”

I shrug. “It’s no big deal. I’m not cutting it off. My hair is already dyed. If I don’t like it, I’ll dye it back. Besides, I’d like to see what I’d look like if I looked like me.”

Okay, so maybe I’m not making the most sense I’ve ever made in my life, but the play’s going to go on and I’m going to be in it.

Lizabett and I are the only ones left on the stage so I lift my fist in the air and bring it down with a resounding, “Yes!”

The saxophone player looks up from where he’s sitting on the stage steps and plays me a very nice full note of congratulations.

Now that I see the play is going forward, I am anxious to get myself ready to play the part of Mary. I pinch myself. I can’t believe it. I’m going to be Mary.

“I’ll need to get one of those home dye kits,” I say as Lizabett and I walk down the aisle so we can start heading back to Pasadena. “Maybe you could stop on the way home.”

“Are you sure you should dye it yourself?”

I shrug. “Who else has time? Marilee is getting everything ready for the party. I don’t think Randy would want to do it. And you need to track down Becca and tell her I’m going to be in a play!”

Lizabett nods. “She’d never forgive us if you went onstage and we didn’t let her know. And she hasn’t been answering her cell phone.”

“Anyway, I’ll just get a plain brown. No big deal.”

“You’re going to be Mary!” Lizabett squeals again like she can’t keep it in.

I grin at her. I can’t quite keep it in either.

It’s not until Randy calls me on my cell phone while Lizabett and I are driving back to Pasadena that I realize we have a problem.

“Did you say the producers aren’t coming?” Randy asks. I can hear the sounds of the kitchen in the background. “Your aunt has been calling all afternoon adding to the menu for the party because she wants to impress these producers.”

“Oh. Well, maybe one of them will still come.”

“Maybe?”

I nod even though Randy can’t see me. “She’s going to be mad if she spends all this effort on a party and there’s no important people there.”

“Well, the party is really for the actors,” Randy says.

I grunt. “My aunt won’t think so. You’re not important in my aunt’s book unless you’re on television or in the news or—”

“Does sports news count?”

“I guess so.”

“Then we’re covered.”

Randy doesn’t tell me what his plans are, but I feel better knowing someone is sharing my worries about my family.

“If you give an audience a chance, they will do half your acting for you.”

—Katharine Hepburn

I
can’t remember why I brought this quote to the Sisterhood. Maybe it’s just because I always liked Katharine Hepburn. One thing I noticed when I had cancer: I found a great deal of comfort in watching old movies. I liked to see the actresses when they were in their twenties and then later when they were sixty or seventy. It’s like I got to see their lives from young to old. I wasn’t sure my life would go that way and it was nice to see someone who had run the full course before they died.

My mother wasn’t home when I got there. I figured she was out shopping at Bristol Farms. They have the best imported fruit around and, even though they are in South Pasadena and not San Marino, that’s where my mother always heads when she thinks we need groceries.

It was just as well my mother was gone. I was jumping with excitement. The lines of the play kept going through my mind as I stepped into the shower. I had four hours until showtime and I had a lot to do. Lizabett was going to come back and pick me up so we could drive down to the play together. Marilee might come with us or she might drive her own car. I know Randy will want his Jeep, so he’ll drive by himself. We have it all worked out. Marilee even got one of the waitresses to oversee the delivery and set up of the food for the after-play party so everything is arranged.

The shower steams up the mirror in my bathroom, but that’s okay. I don’t need a mirror to towel myself off or to read the directions for the brown hair dye. It’s not the heavy-duty dye; it’s that wash-away kind so I can’t go too wrong. I figure I’ll put the dye on and then, with that plastic little cap on my head, I’ll give myself a manicure. I think a nice set of French-tipped nails would look good in Mary’s century, too.

Before I do my nails, however, I decide to look in my closet, just in case I have something that would be suitable for Mary to wear. I liked that dress made out of flour sacks that the first Mary actress had, but I know there’s nothing like that in my closet. I do find a brown beach cover-up, though. It might look like something a migrant worker would wear. Not to the beach, of course, but it’s a coarsely-woven thing with no shape to it. It looks like something that came from a potato sack instead of a flour sack, but I pull it out just in case and lay it on my bed.

I put that old flannel robe on because it won’t matter if a drop of dye falls on it.

I decide to sit out on the balcony while I do my nails. My cat comes with me. It’s overcast out, but if I look north I can see the snow on Mount Wilson and, since snow is giving me my big break, I want to look at it a little. It takes me longer than I expect to put the white tips on my nails and, by the time I let my nails dry and I go back inside, I see that forty minutes have passed.

I’m only supposed to keep the dye on for twenty minutes so, after I bring my cat inside, I hop right into the shower again so I can start rinsing the stuff out of my hair. I hear the door open downstairs and know my mother is back from the store.

My mother will be so excited that I’m really going to be in the play. I towel my hair off and pull my robe on so I can go tell my mother the good news.

I step into the hall and my mother turns around.

“What’d you do?” my mother says in shock. She’s holding a brown bag of groceries and it slips a little.

“I got the part!”

“No, I mean with your hair. What did you do with your beautiful hair?”

My mother is looking at me like I’d shaved my hair and had a frog tattooed on my forehead.

“I dyed my hair for the play I’m going to be in—the first actress left so I’m
on!
”

“But your hair was so beautiful.”

I walk over and take the grocery bag out of my mother’s arms. I know she wouldn’t want to bruise any imported fruit and she might do that if the bag slides any further.

“Blond hair wouldn’t work for the play, Mom. There weren’t any blondes in that part of the world when Jesus was born. Besides, I’m naturally a brunette.”

“Your hair was chestnut. That—” my mother points to my hair “—that’s not chestnut.”

“I know. It’s brown.”

I walk down the hall and set the bag on the table at the end. When I come back, I see my mother has gone into her room and is sitting on a chair. That’s where she sits and watches television, but the television is not on. She’s just sitting there.

“You can come to the play if you want,” I say. “Lizabett is going to pick me up. You can come with us.”

“I always took you to that place on Huntington Drive to have your hair done. They were the
specialists.
That’s what they called themselves.”

“I know, Mom.”

I miss my dad.

I go back into the bathroom and dry my hair. My mother is right. The color is not chestnut. There’s no auburn in it or any blond highlights. It’s just brown. Plus, I left the color on a little too long and now my hair looks dry, like it needs a deep oil conditioner just to have some shine to it.

I go into my bedroom and get dressed in the oldest pair of blue jeans I own. I do wear a little mascara, but I don’t wear any other makeup. My mother is lying on her bed with her eyes closed when I check on her before going downstairs to meet Lizabett.

At the bottom of the stairs, I stop and wrap a wool scarf around my head.

Lizabett has her radio turned up and Christmas carols playing. It’s just turning dark when she comes and the temperature is starting to drop. We have the windows on her car up and her heater is on low. I notice she brought the Sisterhood journal with her. It’s sticking out of her purse.

There are only Christmas decorations at a few of the houses as Lizabett turns the corner to drive onto Huntington Drive. Most houses in San Marino just have poinsettias lining the driveway and don’t have any outside Christmas lights unless they’re tiny white ones. Everything is so understated; it’s the San Marino way. I wish there was more exuberance with Christmas here. I like houses that have the twinkle lights in red, green and yellow.

Lizabett waits until she’s at a stoplight and then she turns to me with a big grin. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“Becca’s coming to the play.”

“Really? Becca? You’re sure?”

Lizabett nods and there’s no denying the look of triumph on her face.

“She doesn’t have to come if she has other things she needs to do,” I say.

Lizabett snorts. “Like anybody has anything more important to do when one of the Sisterhood is in a play for the very first time in her whole life.”

I grin. It’s getting a little warm in the car so I unwrap the scarf that’s been around my head.

“You did it,” Lizabett says, with a glance at me as she turns onto the freeway.

“Do you think it’s too brown?”

“I don’t think something can be too brown. Brown is pretty much it. I think it looks like Mary’s hair would have looked.”

“Me, too.” I sit up a little straighter.

“And the brown hair makes your eyes stand out more.”

I smile at Lizabett. “It’s okay. The hair is just for the play. I’ll try another brown for the real thing. Maybe something like chestnut since that seems to be the color my hair used to be.”

“Chestnut. That sounds pretty.”

There are cars in the parking lot of the church when we get there. During the week when the play has been rehearsing, there have always been some cars. But there are definitely more now. I see Randy’s Jeep.

“You’re going to still sit up front, aren’t you?” I ask Lizabett as we walk to the door of the church.

She holds up her cell phone. “I’m even going to take a picture of you when you take your bow, after it’s all done.”

“Really?” I hold the door open for Lizabett.

Lizabett nods as she walks inside. “Then I’m going to print it out and paste it in the journal. This is your big day. I’m even going to write the exact time of the play in the journal.”

“If you write something in the journal, make sure you say that I couldn’t have done it without your encouragement.”

Lizabett grins. “Thanks.”

I leave Lizabett in the front row of the audience section and start backstage to find Randy. Just before I go behind the stage, I look back and see that Lizabett has pulled the journal out of her purse and is opening it up.

This is Lizabett. I’m so excited. This is as close as I’ve ever come to a star in the making. I wonder if someday a reporter from
Entertainment News
will want to interview me because I was there when Carly Winston got her big break. If they do, I want to have all of the facts right. That’s why I’ve already written down what happened this afternoon. This is going to make a great story on how Carly got discovered. The reason I know she’ll be discovered is that the producer who has the reality show isn’t the only producer who was going to come and watch the play. The guy who does the lights said that the bigger producer is still coming. The one who has the prime-time comedy show.

I didn’t tell Carly that another producer is still coming, because I don’t want her to be nervous.

I need to write down what Carly said on the drive over here, too. Someday all of that will be important. Imagine, knowing what someone like Meryl Streep said on the way to her first acting job. Stuff like that will be important for Carly’s biography. I wonder who will play me if anyone ever makes a movie out of her life.

I cannot say often enough how totally cool it would be if one of us in the Sisterhood became a star!

Oh, here comes Carly. She’s in costume now, but there aren’t enough people in the audience yet to bother with so she just has a blanket wrapped around her.

I see Lizabett folding the journal and putting it back in her purse.

“Do you have a safety pin?” I ask. The woman doing the costumes thought she had safety pins, but she couldn’t find any and Randy’s shirt is missing a button. Everyone said he could go without the button, but I think Joseph would have at least been buttoned. Mary would have seen that his clothes were properly mended for the big event.

Lizabett hands me a safety pin she finds in her purse.

“Break a leg,” she whispers.

“Thanks,” I say as I turn to head back to the dressing area.

It’s darker in the stage area than it was a few minutes ago when I walked by and the lighting man is fiddling with switches and some kind of hood thing he puts over the lights. I get a shiver just realizing that the spotlight now is going to be on me.

In the dressing area, everyone is talking.

In the past, when I’ve seen nativity plays, everything is so quiet. I’m beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t have sounded more like this backstage area, though, with the shepherds talking to the angel and the innkeeper saying his lines to anyone who would listen.

“Lizabett had a safety pin,” I say to Randy as I offer it to him.

“Thanks,” he says as he takes it.

I notice Randy looks a little nervous. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t mentioned my hair.

“I’m glad you agreed to play Joseph tonight,” I say to him.

Randy nods. “The show must go on.”

“And you do know all of the lines.”

“Yeah.” Randy takes a deep breath. “I just need to keep my mind on the goal.”

I think he means something warm and spiritual.

“I’ve been in tighter spots than this in games,” Randy adds, letting me know it’s probably football he has on his mind.

I shrug. Football is okay. I’m sure Joseph didn’t walk all that way to Bethlehem thinking lofty thoughts, either. He probably wondered how long the journey would take and whether or not they would pass anyone they knew and whether their supplies would last.

And Mary was probably wondering what it would be like to have her first baby. The needs of daily life would have been with them on that trip. They might have even gotten tired and quarreled with each other just like other couples might do. Mary might have even wondered if Joseph liked the new way she was wearing her hair.

The director comes in and he gives us a pep talk, telling us that it’s important that we each play our role. He looks better than he did this afternoon when both of his lead actors left, but he’s still a little quieter than usual.

“Just do your best,” the director finally says in conclusion. “We’ve got five minutes to the curtain.”

Just then I see the door to the dressing area is open and a couple of athletic-looking guys are standing there.

“Hey, man,” Randy says as he leaves my side and goes over to slap the two men on the shoulder. “I wasn’t sure you could make it.”

“Are you kidding?” one of them says. “You call us and we’re here. We’ve got your back. We wouldn’t miss it.”

Randy has a wide grin on his face and he waves the two men inside. “Come meet my leading lady. This is Carly,” Randy says as he walks the two men over to me. “She’s getting ready to play Mary.”

“So you’re playing opposite him?” one of the guys asks me.

“Sure am,” I say.

“She’s all in costume already,” Randy says as we’re all standing there. “She even dyed her hair for tonight. She’s usually a blonde.”

“Well, you’re going all out,” the guy who hasn’t spoken yet says. “Impressive.”

I nod and try to keep my smile in place.

“Two minutes to the curtain,” the director calls out. “Time to get in place.”

“Hey, we’ll see you afterward,” the first guy says and they both turn to leave.

I wonder if Mary was ever disappointed in Joseph. I wonder if he ever wanted to show off Mary to his friends and, in doing so, let her know that he was bragging about an image of her that wasn’t even true.

“My hair really is brown,” I say to Randy as we turn to walk toward the stage.

Randy is looking down at his shirt, however. “That pin just stuck me.”

“Take it out if you need to,” I say.

We’re on the stage. The sound of the saxophone is growing louder and the lights on the other side of the curtain are starting to go dim.

Randy looks like he manages to snap the safety pin into place. Then he surprises me. He bends down and gives me a quick kiss right on the lips. My face is still rosy when the curtain opens on us just standing there.